


One Hundred Words Lived Through

by lol-phan-af (lol_phan_af)



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Getting Together, Ghosts, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-15
Updated: 2016-09-15
Packaged: 2018-08-15 03:01:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8039905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lol_phan_af/pseuds/lol-phan-af
Summary: "You're always writing."An easy observation, an obvious one. Hercules knows this, has known this, has said this before. They've done this before, the two of them, because Alex is in love and Hercules is not and they're not sure what's going on between them anymore. Haven't known for a long time. "I know."





	One Hundred Words Lived Through

"You're always writing."  
  
An easy observation, an obvious one. Hercules knows this, has known this, has said this before. They've done this before, the two of them, because Alex is in love and Hercules is not and they're not sure what's going on between them anymore. Haven't known for a long time.  
  
"I know."  
  
"What do you write about?"  
  
"Whatever I can, you know that."  
  
"Do you ever write about me?"  
  
"Yeah sometimes."  
  
"Really? What do you write about me?"  
  
"What I can't tell you in person."  
  
"What can't you tell me?"  
  
"That I love you."  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
"Me too."  
  
\---  
  
"I'm in love with you."  
  
He says it to Alex just as he recited it in the mirror to himself ten minutes earlier, how Alexander said it to him the first time and then never dared to do it again.  
  
"No."  
  
"What?"  
  
"No. I've loved you for so long, for _years_ , Hercules. I've tried everything to get over you and when it finally looks like I'm about to, you do this."  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
"You don't have to be. I never was."  
  
"Alex..."  
  
"Give me time to think about it?"  
  
"I'd give you the world if you asked me for it."  
  
\---  
  
"Please don't hate me."  
  
It's the first thing he says and it comes out strained. Lafayette is sitting there, in love with John, and John is standing in their doorway, in love with Lafayette and Someone Else.  
  
"I couldn't do that, love."  
  
"Not even if I told you that I'm in love with someone else?" Lafayette tries to put the nail polish brush in the bottle but it slips and their fist crashes down on it, glass shattering. Red paint covers their hands, maybe it's blood.  
  
"Are you cheating on me?" Quiet, afraid.  
  
"I would never."  
  
"What's their name?"  
  
"Alex."  
  
\---  
  
"Where did you meet him?"  
  
It's raining, not quite a drizzle and not yet a storm, steady and consistent and comforting. Alex told Hercules about John, and the question is the first thing Hercules says aloud. Their feelings are still there, underneath everything, not quite a drizzle and not yet a storm. Steady and consistent and confusing.  
  
"At work. He's helping me with a business thing."  
  
"Is he nice?"  
  
"Hercules, you don't have to keep asking me questions to avoid this conversation."  
  
"I'm still in love with you."  
  
"Me too."  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
"Me too."  
  
"Fuck."  
  
"Hey, Hercules?"  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"Kiss me."  
  
\---  
  
"We need to talk."  
  
Quiet mornings, time slowed down to one endless stretch of existence unparalleled to anything else. Everything can go right or everything can go wrong if only they play their cards right. They have to play their cards right.  
  
"Is this about Alex?"  
  
His hands are in his hair, moving slowly, languid. He wants it to be about Alex, wants everything not about Lafayette to be about Alex.  
  
"Yes, but not in the way that you think."  
  
"You love him."  
  
A smile, breaking out across Alex's face.  
  
"I do."  
  
"And he loves you."  
  
"He does?"  
  
"I do."  
  
\---  
  
"Please come on this date with us?"  
  
Alex's lips on his bare shoulders, leaning over the back of their couch, the soft fabric of his suit pressed against his back. He's warm and Hercules isn't, a contrast that makes him almost give in if it wasn't for the fact that he is not dressed and doesn't plan to be anytime soon.  
  
"You go, they're your signifs."  
  
"They could be yours too if you came with us."  
  
"Alex."  
  
"Hercules."  
  
He walks around to sit in his lap, holds his face in his hands.  
  
"For me?"  
  
Silence.  
  
"I'll go get dressed."  
  
"Perfect."  
  
\---  
  
Them, the four of them, all together, not for the first time but the first time in this way, drunk. They're trying to go to one of their apartments but none have decided which.  
  
"This would be easier if we lived together." Their words are so slurred that they do not sound real, nobody can answer.  
  
"Why don't we?" Alex, slightly less drunk.  
  
"Because we just started dating as a foursome." Hercules, the mostly sober one except for one glass of wine.  
  
"Can we have one of those?" John, half asleep.  
  
"A foursome?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Maybe when you're sober."  
  
"That's fair."  
  
\---  
  
"Do you think that this'll last?"  
  
Late Saturday night, lying in a bed that never fit all four of them and still doesn't. Alex is lying on top of Hercules instead of next to him, and Lafayette is lying across all of their backs.  
  
"Us?" Alex, voice muffled into Hercules' skin.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"I mean, I hope it does, but I can't guarantee anything."  
  
"I wish we were immortal, so that we could just be together forever."  
  
"If we want we can be."  
  
"How?"  
  
"I don't know, John, it was supposed to cute."  
  
"You're always cute."  
  
"Kiss me?"  
  
"Of course, dear."  
  
\---  
  
In the kitchen of their new house, kissing and trying not to make a sound because the walls are thin and Hercules and John are still asleep in a bed that they don't have to squeeze to fit into anymore.  
  
"Have I ever told you I love you?"  
  
Alex sitting on the counter, Lafayette's hands on his thighs, their foreheads touching, his hands wound around their neck.  
  
"Many times, love."  
  
"Because I do love you, and I feel like I don't say it enough.  
  
"You say it more than enough."  
  
"I'm just making sure."  
  
"I love you too"  
  
"I know."  
  
\---  
  
"What would you do if I died?"  
  
It's late, in their car, Alex driving home from a dinner party, John in the passenger seat just staring at him and waiting for a response.  
  
"Why do you want to know?"  
  
"I'm curious."  
  
"A part of me will die with you, and I won't ever get it back. The world will change and Hercules and Lafayette will never forgive themselves. I wouldn't forgive myself."  
  
"Forgive yourselves for what? How am I dying in your scenario?"  
  
"In the way you think of dying sometimes."  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
"Don't apologize."  
  
"I love you."  
  
"Never stop."  
  
\---  
  
Hercules, on his back, skin sticking to the plastic of the pool raft he's lying on. Alex floats nearby on his own raft, sunglasses over his eyes and Lafayette's tucked into his hair.  
  
"Hello, Hercules." Alex's hand grasps at his own upside down so that neither of them can float away.  
  
"Hello, love."  
  
"I used to be afraid of water, you know."  
  
"I know."  
  
"I'm not anymore."  
  
"I know."  
  
"Want to know something else?"  
  
"Hmm?"  
  
"Lafayette and John can flip a pool raft almost as well as they can kiss us."  
  
"What?"  
  
Four hands push upwards, one man goes down.  
  
\---  
  
It happened suddenly.  
  
"I always thought that I would be the first one to die," John says, empty and cold and soulless. He adjusts the cuff of his suit, pulling it down from where it rode up inside his jacket.  
  
"I always thought none of us would die. We would be immortal and live together forever. I can't believe I was so stupid." Lafayette, voice cracked and broken and strained from crying so hard for four days straight.  
  
"I wanted that too. I never wanted to have to face a life without us all in it together," Hercules tells them.  
  
\---  
  
John, in the middle of the night, staring at Alex as he burst in their door, trying to stop the blood from pouring out of the wound in his side.  
  
"Your fault, this is your fault." His voice is hoarse, he stumbles over to reach John, slips and falls and grabs onto John for support.  
  
"I'm so sorry, Alexander."  
  
"Your apologies mean nothing to me, you mean nothing to me."  
  
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry."  
  
He falls, dead on the floor, eyes blank staring upward at the ceiling.  
  
John wakes up to Hercules and Lafayette wrapped tighter around him.  
  
He's okay.  
  
\---  
  
"I see him sometimes." Lafayette, warm and forgiving, arms wrapped around John because he needs it and so do they.  
  
"Really?"  
  
"Yeah, in the corner of my eye sometimes. I thought I saw him in a store last week and almost screamed."  
  
"Do you ever dream about him?" Their arms tense around him.  
  
"Occasionally, sometimes they're not good dreams though."  
  
"Does he blame you for it?"  
  
"No? John, are you okay? You can tell me."  
  
"I don't want to talk about it."  
  
"Okay, love, whenever you're ready."  
  
"Thank you."  
  
"I love you."  
  
"Never stop."  
  
They kiss him, they need to.  
  
\---  
  
Years later, four graves stand alone, weathered and cold that nobody ever visits anymore.  
  
"Who do you think they were?" She asks her friend. Her friend stares at the names on the grave and shrugs.  
  
"I don't know, good friends maybe?"  
  
Someone laughs distantly, faint.  
  
"What was that?"  
  
"Not sure."  
  
"Can we go home?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
They leave, the thoughts of the four graves disappearing the further away they got.  
  
"You almost blew our cover!"  
  
"We're ghosts, we don't have a cover!"  
  
"Oh my god why did I chose to spend my afterlife with you?"  
  
"You love us."  
  
"I'll never stop."

**Author's Note:**

> all of the little parts are 100 words each which is why it's titled that and idk why I just thought it'd be like a ~~cool challenge~~ and I hate myself but at least I wrote something that wasn't texting for the first time in four thousand years


End file.
